Tuesday, 25 November 2014

Catching up

Last Thursday's Vanguard Readings event, at The Bear, Camberwell, was a lot of fun. Six readers, of which I was one, a lively and very responsive audience, and a great venue.

It was great to hear Josephine Corcoran read. She's been such a tireless promoter of other's work that her own poetry has sometimes been overshadowed, and very unfairly so. I enjoyed her honeymoon poem in particular, but her whole set promised good things from her forthcoming Tall Lighthouse pamphlet.

I'd never heard Josephine Dickinson before, but I have read plenty of her very fine work, and it was given a whole new dimension by her reading here. She's one of those poets who manages to create an enviable stillness and silence around her words - there's a tension there that always feels as though it's on the point of breaking.

Michael Symmons Roberts read beautifully, mainly from his most recent collection, Drysalter, and it's hard to add anything useful to the praise that it, and he, have already received. His poems are always spiritually charged, yet intimate and approachable too.

Cristina Newton read just two long poems, and held everybody spellbound with the sustained music of her work - I look forward to reading and hearing more from her.

Finally, Richard Skinner, whose hard work makes Vanguard happen in the first place, read the work of three absent poets who appear in the Vanguard anthology - it's not on general sale but you will be able to buy it at future readings, and I recommend it very highly.

My own reading went well, and it was good to read a couple of poems, including Butterflies from the afore-mentioned anthology, that haven't had an airing for a while.

A Sky Full Of Birds

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Available from Nine Arches Press

ABOUT ME

I live in Southam, England, and write (and read lots of) poetry. My prose memoir, A Sky Full Of Birds, is out now from Rider Books. My poetry collection, The Elephant Tests, is available from Nine Arches Press. My previous collection, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, was published by Nine Arches in 2010. My first collection, Troy Town, was published in March 2008 by Arrowhead Press, and my chapbook, Making The Most Of The Light, was published in 2005 by Happenstance Press.

hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica

PUBLISHED MARCH 1, 2008

ABOUT THAT TITLE

Poly-Olbion was a vast poem describing the topography, traditions and history of England and Wales, written by Michael Drayton, a friend of Shakespeare. It ran to 15,000 lines of iambic hexameter, and he intended to extend it to include Scotland, but never got that far. Drayton didn't quite pass into obscurity, but if he's remembered now, it's generally for his much-anthologised sonnet, the wonderful "Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part". Anyway, I've always had a soft spot for Drayton, because he was born and raised about 15 miles from here in Polesworth (and because of that sonnet), and thought his now-ignored mega-poem might provide a good name for a blog that will range far and wide, wittering aimlessly and incessantly about whatever catches my eye. I promise not to write it in iambic hexameter, though.